I just picked up a fairly clean Cary sla70A sig amp and a pair of Proac D15s and am looking for suggestions on a preamp and cd player to finish off the system.

After combing through articles on tube/ss preamps i came across an interesting post about shying away from a tube pre with the tube amp. The jist of the commentary was getting at the over softening principle that might exist in mid to lower range tube gear which compromises the sound in comparison to ultra-high end tube gear which may be "shaping" the sound versus denegrating it like my entry level tube stuff is more likely to do. Is this likely to occur if i stack a budget tube cd/ tube pre-and my older Cary tubes? And would it make sense to look into SS pre or passive to attempt to preserve the signal as much as possible prior to getting into the Amp? ( the proacs my guess could really handle the softer side of the tube Yin/yang, but i wonder about this tube into tube into mo'tube principle especially with lower budget stuff.(considering similar vintage Cary Slp50 vs similar SS minimalist passive linestage)On a side note- I popped open the Cary 70Asig when i got it home to check out the guts and it was super clean with Mit Multicaps and rtx caps. Does anyone know if these are the NOS caps for this Vintage Cary?

IMO all tubes is the way to go. Originally, of course, it was all all-tubes. My own experience with very inexpensive tube equipment, from phono preamp, to preamp, to amp, is that it sounds great. Replacing any one of those components with (inexpensive) ss gear makes things worse. Im sure it all depends on WHAT gear and how 'inexpensive' is 'inexpensive', but that's been my experience. Good luck!

At this point with a junky cd player direct into the Cary Tube amp- the Proacs could use some softening and im wondering if i should start tube rolling before getting purchasing a pre-amp and nice cdp?

My experience w/direct CD connect has been not so great, as I have gotten grain and a general "not of one piece" effect. I would recommend looking at a neutral tube amp (Quicksilver Line Stage, AI L1/M3) before going down the very slippery and often expensive slope of tube rolling.

I would say it depends on the particulars of the components you would like to put together; some match well, some don't; and that is true for tube or sand. System synergy is always important, but I don't think it is correct to generalize tube vs. solid state.

My Pass First Watt solid-state amp is closer to a Fi X tube amp in sound than a Linn solid-state amp, for example. The same can be said for tube and sand preamps and tube vs. sand CDPs. I currently use a tube CDP (AA prima) into a Fi Y tube preamp and Fi X tube amp, and everything seems to come together quite well, no exaggerated tube softness.

The only consistent thing, I realize with every additional piece of tube equipment added to my system, is a certain sense of realism to instruments, whereas solid state can be slightly flat in that respect. But then again...excellent ss stuff out there as well.